Some users wonder if the dev will be charged for having it still up, others argue Reddit can't charge him without having signed a contract. Everyone is confused as to why the API change hasn't made it inoperable....
I'm having a different experience with the content but can understand where you are coming from. I spent a lot of time searching out the niche communities I'm interested in and subscribing across all the instances i can find. Trying to actually post more too and encourage others.
The conversation aspect is so true though. It's been the most present surprise and is part of what's driving me to engage and start posting.
I don’t think I understand federation still. A lot of communities added to lemmy.world aren’t federated to other lemmy instances it seems. At least I can’t subscribe to them from my geddit.social account.
One of the hurdles to change for users switching from reddit to a federated platform is less content. The logic goes: “smaller community, less content, I can see i’m missing out on stuff over there so I’m not going to switch away”....
I have mixed feelings towards the repost bots. I see no value in pure reposts from Reddit, but I also have no issue with them IF they only post on dedicated instances and mark the account it’s posting from as a bot. Those posts have no engagement. Most people either disable bot posts in settings or block then once they see them. There is nothing wrong with growing communities slowly, but with organic content or only reposting the most interesting stuff.
Frankly, you're incorrect. It's an incredible pain in the neck to try and deal with the Fediverse beyond local content. Without better community merging or centralization, browsing instances becomes no different than dealing with having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes, or talking on forums before we had tabbed browsing. It's incredibly annoying, and pushes people right back to centralized systems.
Given that I'm more willing to be a Net Nomad than I am to pay, Reddit 2.0 would have to be self-funding and profitable early on without my direct contribution. I think the best way to do it would be to have per-IP monthly access limits, raised incrementally by tracked linkout clicks from the platform (with a higher rate given for actual conversion actions). That way, you keep operating costs low and ensure that you're profit-focused from day 1. Yes, it's an affiliate ad platform from the start, but it allows for organic content generation from users. Oh, and of course advertisers would be charged to create organic ads in relevant communities. Obviously, with a priority being profit and cost, any software would have to be NIH FOSS, with only a few custom scripts ever created by the devs - this cuts down on costs and dev time. If anyone complains about licensing, ban them. If they try taking you to court, you have ad rev, they don't. You win with a better lawyer and sympathetic judge.
Basically, I would want Reddit as it is today. Or Facebook as it is. The advertising I can block easily is their way of keeping my costs at a rate I'm willing to accept - $0.00/lifetime. I think forcing ad engagement will make some people run to the Fediverse and host their own instance, or join and "donate to" (pay to use) an instance they don't host, but for others, it will help them to build healthier relationships with social media, using it less and thus rationing out their time better, or they'll spend time engaged with ad content and providing real value to the platform, rather than imagined "value" by creating organic content that will need to be stored and indexed on the server.
I just find ActivityPub kind of confusing. It works for Mastodon because that's user-centric, and most people only have an account on one site. But the same communities can exist on multiple sites, and it's confusing to navigate all of that.
This sounds like someone who hasn't even tried. These instances aren't difficult to navigate, they're just setup a little differently. It's like refusing to go to another country because they use metric instead of imperial (or vice versa).
What issues have you specifically noticed with this?
The issue I've noticed first and foremost is that there is more than one identically named group. Don't tell me that rpg@kbin.social, rpg@lemmy.ml, and rpg@foo.bar are different communities. They're identically named communities. I'd rather have as false positive of a gun user's instance with threads about rocket-propelled grenades, rather than having to go to each group to browse. Don't tell me to just use the "subscribed" view. That doesn't pick up everything in a topic, nor does it help me to find those - again, identically named - communities on other servers. Whenever a new server comes online with an RPG community, they'll be in their own corner. They can participate as foreigners with another group, but that's not theirs. There's no central place for hosting these communities. If there was a server set up just to host groups, and the rest were for users, that would make sense. I immediately grew tired, trying to find all of the communities related to my interests so I can subscribe to all. I did that back in the day, joining forums and setting up a personal homepage with frames. In theory anyone can join any group, but they have to find it first.
If devs and leaders of the ActivityPub community are going to continue pushing the idea that everyone can talk to everyone else, we absolutely need some form of community merging for identically-named communities. For instance, a kbin.social user should be able to subscribe to cooking and see posts from cooking@. , not just cooking@kbin.social. That's a UX issue just as much as a technical one.
I wasn't around this far back. Can you elaborate on this a bit? What's the issue with "having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes" ?
Back in those days, BBS mail was less "email" and more "text stored on server". To get all of your mail from multiples, you had to connect to each of the servers in sequence, download your mail, and then read it offline and reply (any good BBS software would remember where itwas from, and offer to call back and send each message). Multiplexing meant that you could have a BBS in the NYC area, it would be able to contact and download from one in, say, PA or wherever, and they could each download threads and messages, aka federated content. The pain has been massively reduced over time, and I'm glad. My next point bounces off yours:
This I remember well. Sounds like you are trying to create an account on each instance and are constantly logging out of one and into the next to keep up on the latest posts and comments. This .. is not really the way to do it.
You're right, except in cases where I want a different psudonymity; my choice. In this case, I can't check for new posts in, continuing with the same example, rpg@. without checking the group from each federated server. Posts are neither mirrored nor transcluded. That's the point I'm getting at. I should be able to just open up m/rpg and have it cover all compatible groups.
I disagree with your latter point. kbin.social has hit a reasonable mass of users to have a strong local community and become a platform unto itself, running on kbin software. I'm not interested in a smaller community. I joined Reddit because it was the largest single-site community on the Web. I want the monolithic community, and I accept the costs that incurs, including ads or ad-first design. Right now, the fediverse is just fragments at the foot of the tower of Babel, each speaking a separate tongue, even if some are intelligible to others.
I don't care about the difference between Mastodo, kbin, & Lemmy. They're web software which are trying to replace a monolith, and have seen imited success. I don't care about political leanings. I'm talking about a UX issue. If you want to defed from a site, and receive no more content, then so be it, that's the right of an Admin.
There's still chaos in terms of instances and softwares. Until we all settle on one software that does the job, and until we have a way to have a single community again, Reddit remains the superior option. There is only one r/RPG, it works on Highlander rules - there can be only one. How many groups in the Fediverse named m/RPG or c/RPG are there? Why must each user be forced to answer that question?
That's what would fix things for me; make the federation 100% behind-the-curtain so that I don't have to think about it. I don't care about the backend, I'm not hosting, the value to me is ad views only, not cash. I'd argue a solid 80% of users on corp-owned social media wouldn't understand even if you simplify it. The fediverse/threadiverse is not a drop-in replacement for Reddit. Until it is, I'll keep one foot in spez's yard. If Meta's Threads product does become an ActivityPub community and solves this issue, I'll move there
.
Frankly, you're incorrect. It's an incredible pain in the neck to try and deal with the Fediverse beyond local content.
What issues have you specifically noticed with this? I've only seen a few - the main one is sometimes it's hard to find magazines from elsewhere unless you already know the name of it and the instance it is on (but folks are creating websites to help others find this, so this is a problem being solved right now). The other one is that sometimes federation is slow, so posts and comments on the hosting instance can take hours to show up on another one. But there are technical fixes to this as well (I'm thinking that maybe the next version of activity pub should include a pull action, so other instances can ask for the latest content on behalf of their users from the hosting instance).
Without better community merging or centralization, browsing instances becomes no different than dealing with having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes,
I wasn't around this far back. Can you elaborate on this a bit? What's the issue with "having mail on three or four non-multiplexed BBSes" ?
or talking on forums before we had tabbed browsing. It's incredibly annoying, and pushes people right back to centralized systems.
This I remember well. Sounds like you are trying to create an account on each instance and are constantly logging out of one and into the next to keep up on the latest posts and comments. This .. is not really the way to do it.
Yes, active users continues to grow - on already dominant platforms. And by that I mean KBin.social as a platform,
Don't confuse terms. kbin.social is an instance, the platform is kbin the software.
I'd argue that this is a technically a different platform - microblogging vs what reddit/lemmy do. But by the magic of federation we get both in kbin.
or even Lemmy.ML.
There are problems here with this instance that go far beyond what you are saying. But that's the nice part of federation - even problematic owners can be dealt with. Can't say the same for a centralized service.
Yes, there's not a singularity yet,
Why use this term? What does it even mean in this context? A singularity is a term from physics and represents when the existing rules break down, like in a black hole (collapsed star).
but even this limited plurality shows that it's a pain in the neck to deal with the Fediverse as a whole, so pick your local poison and go for it.
Again, this suggests you don't really understand federation. Barring one problematic instance, there aren't any serious issues accessing all the instances you mentioned from, say for example, kbin.cafe
Connect for Lemmy currently doesn't have a great community browser (hopefully that will change soon). What instance are you on? If you are on lemmy.world they have a pretty good community browser here: https://lemmy.world/communities. You can filter it to just search local communities (on lemmy.world) or all. Other instances probably have similar community search options.
I would really love if this became an option, since I’m planning on making my own instance. I’d like to keep my subscriptions, posts, comments and bookmarks and migrating would be something great. What do you think?
At the same time, we are seeing lots of requests to implement major new features, such as migration between instances, or combining similar communities. As described above, we are completely overloaded with work, and definitely won’t have time to implement these in the near future. If there is a feature you want to see implemented, you will likely need to work on it yourself, or find someone who can.
I’ve been using Lemmy and learning the ropes of the Fediverse and I’m really impressed - especially using wefwef which has replicated my Apollo experience very well....
Lemmy reminds me a lot of the way the internet used to be- smaller, independent communities with more real engagement and less of a content firehose. With so many instances, if you want something, you have to seek it out or start it yourself- with the added benefit of federation keeping everyone connected.
I’m really optimistic that this will get critical mass. I think the concept of federation is great, and I like to think we’re at the forefront of a whole new phase of online community.
Most of us are Reddit refugees, and probably clicking more random links than we ever did before on websites we’ve never seen before. This whole experience feels like the old internet, but also throws up insane red flags with a modern internet perspective. What are the cybersecurity weaknesses we should all be looking for, and...
If you’re navigating to another community on their instance, you won’t be logged in. When you’re seeing that, check the URL. If you’re on lemmy.ml, you’re still on your instance; if not, you’ve navigated to that instance.
There’s multiple ways to structure links, some of which will take you to that community via your instance, some not.
Could it be phishing? Sure. But far more likely, you’re just on another instance where you don’t have an account (or at least an active login).
Use a mail forwarding service to generate disposable e-mails used to sign up, if you accidentally give it to someone else it doesn’t expose any other accounts and can be easily replaced by a new one.
Use a password manager to ensure a strong and unique password.
Use a JavaScript blocker so you only allow the required JavaScript to make the website work and prevent automatic downloads.
I’ve been doing these in general recently and it’s good privacy a security practice. Also slowly replacing my main e-mail address in different service accounts with disposable forwarding e-mail addresses.
Edit: Other than that read a bit more about Lemmy and fediverse workings, verify what instance you’re viewing and navigate to the desired community via your instance as others have mentioned.
Since we are all pirates moving away from Reddit I was thinking if another r/Megalinks style community could be made on Lemmy and survive? (Or pehaps already exists?)...
The Future of the Threadaverse. Is a Lot More Growth a Good Thing?
I’m a recent refugee from Reddit and a very long time social network user. When the Apollo app announced its demise, I joined kbin.social and beehaw.org and love these new networks. The discussions seems much more reasoned and friendly. I do miss some of the more esoteric groups such as music theory and jazz. I’m sure they’ll be created as the threadiverse (kbin and lemmy) continue to grow. In this case, growth will be good. Is there, however, a point where these new networks get too big?
Imagine 56 million daily users (the current figure for Reddit) using the threadiverse platforms. If they were divided evenly into groups of 10,000, that would be 5,600 instances. Surely, such growth would take years, unless Huffman pulls another catastrophic move such as making you pay to be member and having to view ads as well. Even if he did, I doubt Reddit would completely go away. It would join myspace and AOL in the backwaters of the Internet.
Back to my point. Let’s say there are 20 million daily users. Magazines on kbin and communities on lemmy would have 100’s of thousands or even more that a million subscribers. The subreddit r/worldnews has 32 million subscribers. There could also be 100’s of thousands of magazines/communities. Reddit has 2.8 million subreddits. I know communities are tightly limited on beehaw.org, only being added when there is sufficient interest and support for them. On kbin, it appears any member can create a magazine. I could be wrong. Lemme.ee also allows members to create communities without restriction as far as I can tell.
Assuming there were enough instances to support such a volume of users, would that be a good thing or would discussions turn into flame wars, vitriol, and personal attacks? Even if such things were kept under control would threads become full of pointless or uninformative comments that kept you from reading quality posts. I don’t know one way or the other although I suspect, at some point there would be such a thing as too big. Most likely, it will take years for the threadiverse to grow so there’s plenty of time to plan and implement mechanisms to handle it.
I personally can’t wait to see communities like r/hiphopheads, r/internetisbeautiful, r/listentothis, r/battlestations… join lemmy and become as active as they are on reddit. what are some of y’all fav?
Also, just to throw this out there for anyone who isn’t aware; some fine folks have made a site where you can search for communities across all instances. Check it out!
I joined Lemmy a few weeks ago when a lot of other reddit refugees were making the switch. A lot of the servers were overloaded, so I just went ahead and hosted my own. My instance is never overloaded because I’m the only user, and because Lemmy is federated I can subscribe to communities on any instance I want.
I don’t want to see porn on my feed, so i disabled nsfw. However, alot of memes are marked as nsfw. Is there anyway a new system could be implemented here in Lemmy? Like a nsfw filter and a rnsfw(really not safe for work)?
If you go to the lemmynsfw instance and just pre-emptively block all of the communities, it mostly disappears. Folks are (at least on my feed) being pretty good about keeping it all there.
3rd party app for Reddit, Boost, is still functioning well after July 1st (www.reddit.com)
Some users wonder if the dev will be charged for having it still up, others argue Reddit can't charge him without having signed a contract. Everyone is confused as to why the API change hasn't made it inoperable....
sub.rehab · Find your next diving spot (sub.rehab)
Find your next diving spot. A list of subreddit alternatives on different platforms.
What's your opinion on cross-posting?
One of the hurdles to change for users switching from reddit to a federated platform is less content. The logic goes: “smaller community, less content, I can see i’m missing out on stuff over there so I’m not going to switch away”....
People in /r/redditalternatives are talking about a "Reddit 2.0" What website would fill that role? (kbin.social)
On Reddit at reddit.com/r/redditalternatives, people are talking about a "Reddit 2.0." What do you suggest?
what are the best Lemmy subs across the fediverse?
I'm new here. I'm using connect for Lemmy on Android....
Confused about how lemmy.world and kbin are linked to each other...?
Please be gentle as I am a total noob on this site and I'm still in the process of figuring out how any of this works....
Will there be a way to migrate your account to another instance?
I would really love if this became an option, since I’m planning on making my own instance. I’d like to keep my subscriptions, posts, comments and bookmarks and migrating would be something great. What do you think?
Do you guys think this is the start of something bigger?
I’ve been using Lemmy and learning the ropes of the Fediverse and I’m really impressed - especially using wefwef which has replicated my Apollo experience very well....
Welcome all new users and Reddit refugees! [PARTNERED POST]
cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/853004...
[META] [Crosspost] Announcing a new Search Engine for Lemmy (www.search-lemmy.com)
cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/963301...
What are the cybersecurity weaknesses of the Fediverse?
Most of us are Reddit refugees, and probably clicking more random links than we ever did before on websites we’ve never seen before. This whole experience feels like the old internet, but also throws up insane red flags with a modern internet perspective. What are the cybersecurity weaknesses we should all be looking for, and...
Survivability of an r/Megalinks community on Lemmy?
Since we are all pirates moving away from Reddit I was thinking if another r/Megalinks style community could be made on Lemmy and survive? (Or pehaps already exists?)...
What are some reddit communities you wish to see live and more active on lemmy?
I personally can’t wait to see communities like r/hiphopheads, r/internetisbeautiful, r/listentothis, r/battlestations… join lemmy and become as active as they are on reddit. what are some of y’all fav?
What made you pick the Lemmy server you are on?
Does it actually matter?
Porn vs other nsfw
I don’t want to see porn on my feed, so i disabled nsfw. However, alot of memes are marked as nsfw. Is there anyway a new system could be implemented here in Lemmy? Like a nsfw filter and a rnsfw(really not safe for work)?
censored?
I find it ironic on a free speech platform that access to a community about censorship is censored exploding-heads.com/c/censorship...